Crews evacuated as oil tankers targeted near Strait of Hormuz

The latest incident comes after the US alleged that Iran used mines to attack four oil tankers off the nearby Emirati port of Fujairah last month.

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Two oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz have reportedly been attacked, leaving one ablaze and adrift as sailors were evacuated from both vessels and the US navy rushed to assist amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Japan’s trade ministry said the two vessels had “Japan-related cargo” as prime minister Shinzo Abe was wrapping up a high-stakes visit in Tehran that sought to ease tensions between Iran and the United States.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani at the Saadabad Palace in Tehran (Office of the Iranian Presidency/AP)

The latest incident comes after the US alleged that Iran used mines to attack four oil tankers off the nearby Emirati port of Fujairah last month.

Iran has denied being involved, but it comes as Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen have also launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia.

Commander Joshua Frey, a Fifth Fleet spokesman, said the US navy was assisting the two vessels that he described as being hit in a “reported attack”.

He did not say how the ships were attacked or who was suspected of being behind the assault.

His message came just hours after Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels attacked a Saudi airport, striking its arrivals hall before dawn and wounding 26 people.

Mr Abe met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday, the second and final day of his visit.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga, a top government spokesman, told reporters that Mr Abe’s trip was intended to help de-escalate tensions in the Middle East – but not specifically mediate between Tehran and Washington.

Tensions have escalated in the Middle East as Iran appears poised to break the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, an accord that the Trump administration pulled out of last year.

Iran’s nuclear deal, reached in 2015 by China, Russia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the US, saw Tehran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of crippling sanctions.

Western powers feared Iran’s atomic programme could allow it to build nuclear weapons, although Iran has long insisted its programme was for peaceful purposes.

In withdrawing from the deal last year, US President Donald Trump pointed to the accord not limiting Iran’s ballistic missile programme and not addressing what American officials describe as Tehran’s malign influence across the wider Middle East.

Those who struck the deal at the time described it as a building block towards further negotiations with Iran, whose Islamic government has had a tense relationship with America since the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran and subsequent hostage crisis.

Already, Iran says it quadrupled its production of low-enriched uranium.

Meanwhile, US sanctions have cut off opportunities for Iran to trade its excess uranium and heavy water abroad, putting Tehran on course to violate terms of the nuclear deal regardless.